The Family Event: "Bringing Home the Perfect Tree, ca. 1870" depicts the Victorian Christmas time period. The Victorian era of the late 19th Century defines Christmas, as we know it today, with elaborate trees and decorations.
The painting gives us a view of two children who found and cut the perfect tree now bringing it to their home. Their home is not just any home, but that of Joseph Kinney famed steamboat captain of America's inland waterways.
The site of the mansion is close to the location of the old town of Franklin, Missouri across the river from Boonville. The home was built in 1867 for a cost of $24,000. The building of the home embodies a definition of the length and breadth of America's rivers. Captain Kinney, aboard his steamboats during the mid to late 1800's, was able to bring materials literally from all over the world to Franklin to build this home for his family. The only materials manufactured on site were the bricks. The mansion is framed with cypress lumber from the Mississippi River Delta, the walnut used for trim, doors, and windows was milled in St. Louis from logs gathered by Captain Kinney during his travels on America's rivers, and to add an international note to the construction, the nine marble fireplaces were made with marble quarried from the same quarry as the marble used by Michelangelo. All mantels were shipped to the United States, offloaded in New Orleans, taken to St. Louis up the Mississippi River, and then up the Missouri to the private landing of Captain Kinney. The captain named his home Rivercene. The mansion is currently used as a bed and breakfast.